Food and other goods are frequently packaged for retail purposes in shrinkable film that is then shrunk around the goods. The film may initially be in the form of a bag in which event this is open at one end to permit the insertion of the goods and is then heat sealed and shrunk around the goods. Often, such bags are decorated in a conventional manner, such as by trap printing. It is often desirable to be able to hang the bag containing the goods from a peg, for instance a hook or the peg of a peg board, for display in a supermarket. It is therefore necessary to provide hanger means by which the bag can be hung from a hook. The hanger means can be an external hanger into which the bag fits, for instance a cone-shaped cut out of paper or other material. Preferably, however, the bag includes hanger means as part of the bag.
In one system a strap or hook is permanently secured to the bag. For instance in U.S. Pat. No. 3,207,300, a strap is heat sealed to a bag. Unfortunately, it is difficult to obtain an adequately reliable seal between many externally applied straps and bags. Also it is not easy to construct the strap so that it can be sealed to the bag and will readily stand away from the bag, to permit easy hanging on a peg, during use.
In German GBM No. 8224353.0 this problem is overcome by forming the strap of non-shrinkable material so that when the bag is shrunk around the goods the strap stands clear of the bag. However, it is still necessary to take particular precautions if an adequate seal is to be achieved between the strap and the bag.
In another system the hanger means comprises a hole punched in the bag material at one end of the bag. Unfortunately, the bag material is liable to tear around the hole. Localized tearing can be minimized by providing a metal or plastic eyelet as reinforcement around the hole but it is inconvenient to secure this reinforcement and the sheet material between the reinforcement and the filled part of the bag is still liable to tear.
In Japanese Kokai No. 52-72698 (Hashimoto), part of a side wall of a heat shrinking synthetic resin tube is pulled through a slit in a paper, and therefore, the part protrudes on the other side of the paper. A support is inserted into this protruding part thereby providing a hanger portion. The article to be wrapped is inserted into the remaining portion of the tube that is not pulled through the slit, enabling the wrapped article to be held to the paper.
In French Published Application No. 2259765 (Daladoire) the bag comprises two sheets. The extension piece, which has a hole therein so it functions as the hanger, is a co-extension of the bag sheets per se and there is nothing disclosed about shrinkability.
In U.S. Pat. No. 2,983,087 (Schofield), the insert in the "hanger portion" of the bag representatively is cardboard and "is not intended for insertion in that part of the package under vacuum and therefore its shape is not likely to be distorted as happens to the package itself when it collapses around an object," lines 60-64 of colume 2 of Schofield. This limitation of Schofield results in a drawback in that only the commodity-containing portion of the bag, excluding the hanger portion, can be subjected to vacuum.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,920,123 (Martelli), the edging material, i.e. the reinforcing member of the hanger portion, representatively is cardboard. It is required in this patent that the ends of the film edges are not adhered to this edging so that they may contract freely during shrinkage, lines 43-45 of column 1 of Martelli.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,252,269 (Peppiatt), it is noted that the hanger portion (which is denoted in the patent as a handle) is welded to the bag along a weld as illustrated in FIG. 1 of this patent. The patent is specifically limited as to "said handle being welded along its inner boundary portion to only said gussett adjacent said fold line defining said inner boundary portion of said gussett", lines 8-12 of column 4 of the patent.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a hang bag comprising a bag of shrinkable film in which goods may be packaged and provided with improved hanger means. In particular it is an object of the invention to provide a bag wherein the hanger means are easily and conveniently incorporated into the bag and can have high strength, wherein the body of portion of the bag and the hanger portion of the bag have in common a face layer and a rear layer (1) that are laminated to a portion of the face panel and rear panel, respectively, of the body portion of the bag and (2) that have a reinforcing member of non-shrink film laminated between these two layers. In a preferred embodiment, a portion of the reinforcing member is disposed between (a) the adjacent portions of the face layer and face panel, or between (b) the adjacent portions of the rear layer and rear panel or between both (a) and (b). A further object of the invention is an improved way of making a hang bag having improved hanger means.